Bradley Wiggins is set to ride in the Tour of Britain with madison team-mate Mark Cavendish. Photograph: Javier Soriano/AFP

Mark Cavendish and Bradley Wiggins will ride the Tour of Britain in September, with their American-registered team, High Road, yesterday becoming the first to confirm their participation in the country's biggest stage race.

Both are currently riding the Giro d'Italia, where Cavendish won Tuesday's stage after strong support from Wiggins. The British pair will team up at the Olympics in Beijing to ride the Madison - in which they are world champions - with their home tour likely to be their first post-Olympic event. The Tour of Britain starts in London on September 7, finishing in Liverpool a week later.

Yesterday's sixth stage of the Giro was shortened after protests over stage lengths and transfers, with Wiggins among those to complain. "We've not been in bed before midnight yet," he said.

The Italian Matteo Priamo won the 231km stage to Peschi, out-sprinting the Spaniard Alan Pérez, with the pink jersey of the overall race leader passing to another Italian, Giovanni Visconti. The Welsh-based Swede Magnus Backstedt claimed ninth. Visconti finished eighth 40 seconds off the pace but did enough to take the overall lead.

"I really wanted the pink jersey, I went after the intermediate sprints and then gave it everything in the final few hundred metres," Visconti said. "Wearing the pink jersey pays me back for all the sacrifices me and my family have made."